One seemed to see the soul of Germany, at least of this “great time,” in these men’s eyes.  The Belgian soul we did not see much of, but there came glimpses of it now and then.

In Antwerp we stopped in a little cafe for a cup of chocolate.  It was a raw, cheerless morning, with occasional snowflakes whipping by on the damp north wind, the streets were all but deserted, and in the room that used to be full of smoke and talk there were only empty tables, and you could see your breath.

A man was scrubbing behind the bar, and a pale girl in black came out from behind the cashier’s counter to make our chocolate.  It was good chocolate, as Antwerp chocolate is likely to be, and as we were getting ready to go out again I asked her how things were.  She glanced around the room and answered that they used to have a good business here, but the good times were gone—­“les beaux jours sont partis.”  Two others drifted over and asked questions about the bombardment.  She answered politely enough, with the air of one to whom it was an old story now—­ she had left on the second day, when the building across the way was smashed, and walking, catching rides, stumbling along with the other thousands, had got into Holland.  As to why the city fell so quickly—­ she pulled her shawl about her shoulders and murmured that there were things people did not know, if they did they did not talk about them.

And the Germans—­how were they?  They had no complaints to make, the girl said; the Germans were well behaved—­“tres correct.”  Possibly, then—­it was our young Italian who put the question—­the Belgians would just as soon...  I did not catch the whole sentence, but all at once something flashed behind that non-committal cafe proprietress’s mask.  “Moi, je suis fiere d’etre Belge!” said the girl, and as she spoke you could see the color slowly burning through her pale face and neck—­she was proud to be a Belgian—­they hoped, that one could keep, and there would come a day, we could be sure of that—­“un jour de revanche!”

But business is business, and people who run cafes must, as every one knows, not long indulge in the luxury of personal feelings.  The officers turned up their fur collars, and we buttoned up our coats, and she was sitting behind the counter, the usual little woman in black at the cafe desk, as we filed out.  Our captain paused as we passed, gave a stiff little bow from the waist, touched his cap gallantly, and said:  “Bon jour, mademoiselle!” And the girl nodded politely, as cafe proprietresses should, and murmured, blank as the walls in the Antwerp streets:  “Bon jour, monsieur!”

Chapter IX

The Road To Constantinople

Rumania and Bulgaria

The express left Budapest in the evening, all night and all next day rolled eastward across the Hungarian plain, and toward dusk climbed up through the cool Carpathian pines and over the pass into Rumania.